Pages

Saturday, 3 October 2015

CHARLIE LOVETT'S FIRST IMPRESSIONS IS OUT IN PAPERBACK. READ AN EXCERPT AND WIN A COPY.

Charlie Lovett’s FIRST IMPRESSIONS isnow out in paperback! To celebrate the event, here's a great excerpt to read and the chance to win a copy! (See the rafflecopter form below this post)

Read an excerpt

Steventon,
Hampshire, 1796

FOND AS
SHE WAS of solitary walks,
Jane had
been wandering rather longer
than she had intended, her
mind occupied not so much with the story
she had lately been reading as with one
she hoped soon to be writing. She was
shaken from this reverie by the sight of
an unfa­ miliar figure, sitting on a stile, hunched over a book. Her first
impres­ sion was that he was the picture
of gloom - dressed in shabby clerical garb, a dark look on his
crinkled face, doubtless a volume of dusty ser­ mons clutched in his ancient hand.
Even the weather seemed to agree with this assessment, for while the sun shone all around him, he sat in the shadow of the single
cloud that hung in the Hampshire sky.
Realiz­ ing how far she had come from
home, Jane thought it best to
retrace her steps without interrupting
the cleric's thoughts as he had unknow­
ingly interrupted hers. During the long
walk home, across fields shimmering with
the haze of
summer heat, she
amused herself by sketching
out a character of this old
man, storing him
away, like so many others, for
possible inclusion in some novel yet to
be conceived. He was, she decided, a natural history enthusiast, but his
passion lay not with anything beautiful
like butterflies or wildflowers. No, his particu­ lar expertise was in the way of garden slugs, of which he
could identify twenty-six varieties.

By week 's end, Jane had filled in the pathetic
details of his life. Dis­appointed in love, he had turned to natural history, where the objects of his pursuit were less likely to spurn his
advances. As his passion for his study grew, and as he shared it more
enthusiastically with those around him, his invitations to dine gradually
declined until he was left alone on most evenings with his books and his slugs.
He was a melancholy fig- ure, which made
it all the more shocking to find him, on Sunday morn- ing, not only seated in
the Austen family pew, but smiling broadly and greeting her by name.

Jane had led the family procession from the
rectory to the small stone church of St. Nicholas, where her father was rector.
The church stood on the far outskirts of the village, flanked by flat, green
meadows. After pass- ing through the rectory gates into the narrow lane that
led to the church, the Austens had fallen in with several villagers. When she
had concluded her pleasantries with these acquaintances, Jane had not a moment to re- spond to the stranger’s greeting
before the service began and she found herself separated from him by her mother and her sister Cassandra; of her six
brothers, none were currently in residence in Steventon.

The
man’s robust baritone voice,
evident in his hymn singing, ex- uded a spirit that was anything but
melancholy. Jane endured a sharp elbow from Cassandra for not
attending to the gospel reading; instead, she was trying to watch the man out
of the corner of her eye. She failed to follow the thread of her father’s
sermon, lost as she was in a reevalua- tion of the stranger’s history. By the
time the service ended she was thor- oughly intrigued and determined to secure a proper introduction to satisfy
her curiosity about the true nature of his character.

“Go along home and I shall wait for
Father,” she told her mother and Cassandra as they stood beside the
ancient yew tree that clung to the west
end of the church. Jane felt certain
that a visiting clergyman with leave to occupy the Austen pew must be known to
her father, and she expected Mr. Austen to make the necessary introduction, so
it came as a surprise when she felt a tap on her shoulder and turned to face the stranger, who addressed her in a
cheerful voice.

“Miss Jane Austen, if I am not mistaken.”

“You are at an advantage, sir,” said Jane.
“You know my name, but I

do not know yours.”

Mansfield. Reverend Richard
Mansfield at your service,” he
said with a slight bow. “But we have nearly met already.”

“What can you mean, sir?”

“Only that two days ago you emerged from
the waving grain of Lord Wintringham’s field and stopped in your tracks when
you spotted me reading on a stile just outside Busbury Park. At the time I
conceived the idea that you were a rather dull and impetuous young lady, but I
already begin to suspect that I may have been mistaken.” His eyes twinkled in
the morning sun as he said this, and his
smile transformed from one meant for the
general public to one that seemed to be reserved solely for Jane.

“I hope you will come to believe so, Mr.
Mansfield. I have been ac- cused of having many faults by those who know me
well, but neither dullness nor impetuousness has been among them.”

“And of what faults do they accuse you?”

“My worst, or so I am told, are a too
highly developed interest in fic- tionalizing my acquaintances and a tendency to form opinions of others
hastily.”

“Opinions such as the one you formed of me
when you saw me alone with my book?”

“You do me wrong, sir. You assume first that
I saw you, second that I gave your appearance
sufficient thought to form an opinion, and third that my opinion was ill
considered.”

“In the first case,” said Mr. Mansfield, “I
observed you myself, for though your mind may have been elsewhere, your eyes
were certainly on me; in the second case, your father tells me, somewhat to my
sur- prise, that you aspire to write novels, so I can only assume that anyone
you meet may become a victim of your
imagination; and in the third case it
seems impossible that you would have guessed the extent to which our interests overlap.”

“I confess that shared interests did not
occur to me. I imagined you a student of
natural history, reading . . . but you will laugh when I
tell you.”

“I enjoy a good laugh,” said Mr. Mansfield.

“I imagined you reading a book on garden
slugs.”

Mr. Mansfield did laugh, long and heartily, before confessing the true
nature of his reading. “It may shock you, Miss Austen, but in fact I was
reading a novel.”

“A novel! You do shock me, sir. Do you not
find novels full of non- sense? I myself find them the stupidest things in
creation.”

“Then you read novels?”

“Novels! I’m surprised at you, Mr.
Mansfield, suggesting that a young lady such as myself, the daughter of a
clergyman, no less, could occupy her time with such horrid things as novels.”

“You tease me, Miss Austen.”

“Indeed I do not, Mr. Mansfield, for though
you know that I aspire to write novels, you cannot expect that I would take my
interest in the form so far as to actually read them.” Because Mr. Mansfield
was old enough to be her grandfather, Jane took the bold step of adding a wink
to this statement and turned toward the rectory. The congregation had dispersed
and only the sounds of birdsong and the breeze in the yew tree disturbed the
silence of the morning. Jane was pleased
when Mr. Mansfield fell into step beside her as she made her way up the
tree-lined lane. With the summer sun now high in the sky, she was grateful for
the cooling shade.

“Indeed it does, but you are assuming
again, Miss Austen. First that I am staying at the park, and second that I am
taking my luncheon there.”

“And my novelist’s imagination has deceived
me again?”

“Not entirely,” said Mr. Mansfield. “For I
am a guest at Busbury Park, but though he can offer me only cold mutton, your
father has asked me to take my luncheon at the rectory.”

“I confess, Mr. Mansfield, I am sorry to
hear it.”

“And why is that? Are you so embarrassed to
be seen in the company of a novel reader?”

“On the contrary, it is because you are a
novel reader that I had rather hoped to keep you to myself. Once you enter the doors of the rectory, you will
become a friend to my mother and my sister Cassandra, and you will no
doubt retire after lunch to the study with my father and abandon the
rest of us.”

“Surely, Miss Austen,” said Mr. Mansfield,
“I can be both a visitor at the rectory and a special friend of the rector’s
younger daughter.”

“I believe, Mr. Mansfield,” said Jane as
she took the clergyman’s arm, “that I should like that very much indeed.”

“From First Impressionsby Charlie Lovett, published on September 29, 2015 by Penguin Books, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright by Charles Lovett, 2014.”

About the Book

In First ImpressionsLovett immerses readers in a world where books hold closely guarded secrets that threaten to turn the literary world upside down. For Lovett, a former antiquarian bookseller and collector, old books hold a power like none other; in his thrilling, suspenseful mysteries, their contents become matters of life and death.

In 1796, Jane Austen is living in Hampshire and working on her first book, an epistolary novel tentatively titledElinor and Marianne, when she strikes up an unlikely friendship with an aging cleric named Richard Mansfield. An author himself—albeit of a less-than-artful book of allegories—Mansfield soon becomes Jane’s closest literary companion. On long walks through the countryside and engaging chats by the fire, they offer each other not only friendship, but also professional advice. Neither can foresee the impact their collaborations will have on future generations.

In present day London, Sophie Collingwood is a lifelong book lover bereft at the loss of her beloved Uncle Bertram. After his books are sold off to pay debts, Sophie takes a job at an antiquarian bookshop hoping to earn enough to slowly buy back the books and restore his collection. When, in one day, two customers request a copy of the same obscure book—the second edition ofLittle Book of Allegoriesby Richard Mansfield—Sophie is drawn into a mystery that will cast doubt on the true authorship ofPride and Prejudice. Sophie, a dogged researcher and devoted Jane Austen fan, is quickly drawn into a frantic search for a book that threatens not just Jane Austen’s reputation, but Sophie’s own life.

Combining a very Austen-like love triangle; a portrait of one of our greatest literary legends; and a tribute to the typesetters and printing presses of the eighteenth century,FIRST IMPRESSIONSwill charm bibliophiles and Jane Austen lovers everywhere. Lovett skillfully pulls readers into his world where true joy comes from a life lived in books.

About the Author

Charlie Lovettis a writer, a teacher, and a playwright. He and his wife split their time between Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and Kingham, Oxfordshire, in England.

I read it and I loved it! it is an excellent book. There is everything in it: mystery, adventure, romance, thoughts about what it means to love books. It is a book written by a booklover that will delight every reader, with or without the cultural background. I know what I am talking about, being French I did not grow up with Austen or Dicken but rather with Maupassant and Balzac but that did not stop me to utterly enjoy this book. Thank you for your work Mr Lovett!

About Me

I've been an English teacher for a long time now and a blogger for more than 5 years. I love classic literature, reading, theatre, period drama, art and that is what I usually write about on FLY HIGH and My Jane Austen Book Club. I'd love to hear from you! Leave your comments to my posts or send e-mail messages to learnonline.mgs@gmail.com.